Updating "Our Daily Breadth" blog roll

It's time for a little bit of housekeeping. Some of my favorite blogs and/or blogs I find most useful are listed in Our Daily Breadth, in the right-hand column, down there beneath World Famous Posts. Go take a look. I'll wait. I've got Raising Hope on Hulu, so I'm not going anywhere.

Among them are the usual suspects I routinely check out — The Marmot's Hole, ROK Drop, One Free Korea, Brian in Chŏllanam-do, and KoreaBeat — but the list also includes a few others of less renown that are still worth paying attention to. One of them, List of the Day, has absolutely nothing to do with Korea except for an occasional entry in "engrish photo of the day."

But nothing is constant except change, and so Our Daily Breadth must keep up with the times.

Out with the old.
They say change is good, but they're full of crap. Tell me how "a change for the worse" is good, unless we're talking about Kim Jong-il's pancreas screening or someone like that. A couple of really good blogs were lost today, and I'm not happy.

I find it a bit sad to be removing DPRK Studies, but the only post up, from eight months ago, is a message that blog owner Richardson is signing off. He didn't even leave up the old posts (please, if you ever stop blogging, leave the legacy for others to enjoy.... mkay?).

Now I can't say that Richardson and I saw eye to eye on everything — perhaps only a bit less than Joshua at One Free Korea and I do — but I liked the insight and the effort. It was a good blog.

Similarly, I'm a little disappointed to find that Foundatron appears to be having some hiccups. This is a blog that was dedicated to mapping and bicycling by someone in Seoul, and I put it in the Daily Breadth in part to encourage its development. Unfortunately, it appeared for a while that WordPress bots had taken over, and now it seems the owner is in the process of migrating to Google Apps, but for now I have no choice but to remove it — for now.

Also, Korea Pop Wars, by the eminently good guy Mark Russell, will be removed just because it's no longer updated. I will put his new blog, the not-nearly-as-Korea-related Mark Russell's Website, in the lesser blog roll.

Extra! Korea has come back from the grave, so I'm happy to keep that one up there. The Grand Narrative will also remain, even though I don't go there as often as I used to. I like the blog and I think the owner has great insight and everything, but it often tends more toward the salacious than the substantive, and I think it suffers. The "sociological image" series, methinks, has veered away from sociology of the people and is at times more akin to analysis of the advertising industry.

Sure, media images from commercials and pop music do affect what goes on in Korea or any other modern society, but if one were to get most of what they learn from TGN, I think they'd get a skewed picture of what everyday South Koreans are like, perhaps even on matters of dating and sexuality that the owner frequently discusses. Just a gripe, not a criticism; I do like the blog and I'm keeping it in Our Daily Breadth, so that obviously means something.

And Brian in Jeollanam-do stays, even though he's not actually in Chŏllanam-do anymore. He does maintain his blog, and his love of the region (some would say tough love) remains high. He's probably the Honam area's biggest promoter in English, and I say more power to him.

In Canada, this is how we do ddongchim. 
You must understand our culture.

Exposed Waygooks! will also remain, just because it's my blog and I do plan to upgrade it, especially after this summer when I plan to cruise Hongdae and Itaewon looking for oégugin and KoKos acting stupid. Or if someone sends me worthy pics.

In with the new.
But I am happy to add new additions as well. Chris at Destination Pyongyang deserves a spot for his analysis of what's going on in North Korea, a topic dear to me.

I have also recently discovered a blog of sorts that amounts to a robust newsfeed on North Korea where the owner, a peninsula-based gent named Tor, occasionally adds commentary. It's called northkorea.Collected, kinda self-explanatory.

I have also added The Chosun Bimbo, Adam Cathcart's blog, and Eat Your Kimchi to my "Blog roll of blogs that list me in their blog roll." I probably should have done that a long time ago. [UPDATE: I've made a further addition, seoulsuzy's A Seoulful Life, which has a lot of neat little personal tips on things to see and places to go.]

Some have asked me why I don't put such-and-such blog on the list. Well, there are some who go on hysterical rants that make sweeping generalizations about KoKos and their attitudes toward foreign residents while whining over and over again that KoKos make sweeping generalizations about foreign nationals. Sheesh. And then there are some where, owing to past uncalled-for acts that caused personal offense, I don't see myself regularly promoting the blogs of said bloggers, even if I occasionally comment on or even occasionally link to theirs and would share a brew of some kind if the opportunity presented itself.

Room for one more.
If you have a blog and you would like me to consider highlighting it, please drop me a line. Even if it doesn't make the eclectic cut for Our Daily Breadth, there is probably plenty of room in the only-slightly-less-prestigious "Blog roll of blogs that list me in their blog roll."

That is, unless you're doing something illegal, unethical, or overly weird, like koala porn.